A Bit of a Stretch

Jacob Van LunenThursday, April 02, 2009

Hello, again, and welcome to another edition of Building on a Budget. I spent a good portion of this week trying to decide what I was going to write about. I tried to think of a Standard deck that was offbeat, inexpensive, and had some game, but I just could not think of anything new. I had some friends over this weekend to test Extended, and I decided to throw together a homebrew.

The deck is, at its core, a blue-black control deck. It plays removal spells, various ways to control the board, and a healthy dose of card draw. What makes this deck very different is its late game plan. Once you draw a second Raven's Crime, you play a Spellweaver Helix, imprinting Raven's Crime and Time Stretch. You can then play the second Raven's Crime and take an additional two turns. Every land you draw or have in hand becomes a Time Stretch. Eventually you draw an Academy Ruins and use it to put artifact lands on the top of your library. Hence, you have an unlimited number of turns to find a way to win.

The Support Cards

Wretched Banquet: This card is very powerful. I'm quite surprised it has not received much play in the first few months of Constructed with Conflux. I feel this card has applications from Legacy to Block Constructed. This is a very efficient removal spell and should see more play than it does.

Darkblast: A very nice removal spell. Darkblast is very strong against the Elf and Faerie decks.

Trinket Mage: One of the best cards in Extended. This is a very good card and it's a common, so you won't have to break the bank.

Chalice of the Void: This card is a bit expensive, but it seems like a very nice fit in this deck. I'm only playing one because of the monetary value of the card, but the single copy feels very strong.

Sigil of Distinction: Fetching the Shards of Alara Equipment with Trinket Mage is a very strong play. My friend Gerard Fabiano recently added a single copy of Sigil to his Extended Faerie deck that plays Trinket Mage. From the games I've seen it seems very powerful. This deck needs a way to win the game and this seems like a fine candidate.

I decided that the deck should play a full playset of each of the on-color artifact lands. They make our Thirst for Knowledge much better, and they maximize our chances of having one to use with Raven's Crime and Academy Ruins once we combo.

The deck plays Arcane Sanctum because it fixes our mana and allows us to set an Explosives off for 3, this is surprisingly important. The white mana also gives us more sideboard options.

Academy Ruins is working extra hard here. I wanted to play enough copies of Academy Ruins to fight through other blue decks copies. Drawing a second copy isn't the end of the world because it can be easily discarded to your Compulsive Research.

The deck is surprisingly elegant. It doesn't play a single two-drop, so in most matches you want to be setting your Chalice of the Void at two counters. This isn't new tech; Kenny Öberg played a Chalice of the Void deck that lacked two-drops and Top 8ed a Pro Tour and a Grand Prix with it. It won't come as a surprise to most people that Chalice for 2 is very powerful against most decks in Extended.

The Sideboard

The fourth Darkblast is there for our Elf and Faerie matchups. The Sunbeam Spellbomb is a silver bullet that can be used to gain some much-needed life when racing a Zoo or Burn deck. The Trickbinds are used for fighting the Storm decks. The Night of Soul's Betrayal is, like Darkblast, used against Faeries and Elves. The Cruel Ultimatum and extra Spellweaver Helix give us the option of going all in on our combo. Cruel Ultimatum is much better than Time Stretch against Zoo and Burn decks. The Ultimatum also provides us with a very strong win condition.

Matchup overview: I don't think the Zoo matchup is as good as it seemed. I only had a chance to play two games. The deck is definitely capable of winning the matchup, but the Zoo decks are capable of drawing very well and putting a lot of pressure on us. I'm happy the deck performed well, but I don't want to go out on a limb and say this is a good matchup just yet.

Match overview: This seems like a good matchup. We have all the tools we need to win an attrition war. They have to counter our Spellweaver Helix, but we have Academy Ruins and can try to resolve Raven's Crime every turn until they run out of counters.

I keep Island, Swamp, Arcane Sanctum, Compulsive Research, Time Stretch, Spellweaver Helix, Thirst for Knowledge. My opponent plays a land and passes. I draw a Chalice of the Void, play a land, and pass. The game basically functions as draw go. My opponent plays lands and cycles them and starts gaining card advantage with Life from the Loam. Eventually he plays a Kitchen finks on his ninth turn. I still haven't found a second Raven's crime, but my opponent isn't putting much pressure on me. I suspect he sided out most of his win conditions to stop my combo. He has a few Ancient Grudges in his graveyard that he has dredged up and I can't go off just yet. I'm at eleven when I draw my tenth land and handcast my Time Stretch. I have a pair of Spellweaver Helix in my hand but I only have one Raven's Crime in my graveyard. I draw another Time Stretch and play it. It's really frustrating when you take four extra turns and aren't sure if you can win. On my fourth turn I draw the second copy of Raven's Crime and decide I have to go for it. I play my Chalice of the Void for 2 to stop his Ancient Grudges. I then play my Spellweaver Helix and imprint the combo. I play the Raven's Crime but my opponent has a Ghost Quarter that he can use on my Academy Ruins when I draw it. I decide to just use every land I draw as a Time Stretch and try to get there. I get to a Trinket Mage and find my Sigil. I play my Sigil for 10 and equip it the next turn, but it gets Slided out. This goes on for awhile until my opponent runs out of cyclers. I'm lucky enough to have drawn a few card-drawing spells and I have six extra turns on the stack. Eventually I'm able to attack, and I draw enough card draw and land to keep my opponent out of the game.

Match overview: This match seems very easy. Be careful for Duergar Hedge-Mage after sideboards. It's best to hold artifact lands to use with the combo if you are able. Try fetching your Chalice and playing it for 2 on the turn you combo—you need to protect your Helix from Ancient Grudge. If your opponent has a Hedge-Mage in play with Slide, you need to save a Trickbind and the mana to use it—otherwise they can break up your combo. This may seem like a tall order, but their deck is very slow and you have plenty of time to set up a big turn.

3-0

I hope you all enjoyed this break from the norm. I think Extended is a very healthy format with a lot of options for originality. A deck featuring Pestermite and Kiki-Jiki just won a PTQ. I don't think this deck is quite ready for the PTQ circuit, but I think it's a lot of fun to play and it will have enough game to be interesting.

I was thinking about working on this deck more and presenting a series of columns refining the list over another week or two. A lot of people in the forums want me to explain deck evolution and I'd be happy to work on this list and see where we can go with it. As always, send me your e-mails and write in the forums.